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If I draw a picture with a pencil, did the pencil draw the picture? My major concern is that this doesn't protect artists - it takes the rights away from the i

If I draw a picture with a pencil, did the pencil draw the picture? My major concern is that this doesn't protect artists - it takes the rights away from the individual creator or user, even if they're using these AI tools, and moves towards the model being the creator. This is a step towards centralizing ownership of human creative output based on the tools used, rather than the creative work or output.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
This is an interesting call-out because a pencil is a (simple) machine which is used to create drawings with human input. So this ruling suggests that a sufficiently complex machine, even with human input, is not being used to create drawings but is instead the thing which is creating the drawings. That "sufficiently complex" line is being drawn somewhere between Photoshop and Stable Diffusion.
- courseofaction 4y ago
  I'm not sure the complexity is sufficient to explain the decision, I think it's more the 'type' of work. Many things have insanely complex manufacturing processes, but we never credit microchips to the factory. Spitballing, but I think we are conceptualizing creative work as somehow from other kinds of work, and that creative work loses its specialness (especially in the production of art and ideas) when augmented with tools. As someone who works in a creative industry, this is nonsense: all kinds of art are majority skill and work. In my opinion, it's the use of art that confers its value and 'specialness'. An image generated and shown to no one is not equal to an image generated and used as part of graphic novel.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
    I considered how one might give a prompt (the same prompt) at two different times and get two different images which started me towards thinking about a similar result in the context of other image editing software (GIMP, Photoshop, probably other things I haven't heard of). > ... creative work loses its specialness (especially in the production of art and ideas) when augmented with tools. I think about image editing software which does "fuzzy" stuff. If I don't drag my mouse in exactly the same way twice, I will get different results, however slight, when editing images but the end result is always something "I created". I do tend to land on the side that these things use different skills, which opens up these arguments that "generative" is not "creative". I just see a lot of gray when I consider these things in detail. > it's the use of art This is a very succinct way to put it. Your last paragraph hits home.
- pishpash 4y ago
  If you read the USCO administrative letter [1], it wasn't complexity that killed the claim, it was stochasticity. That's a much shakier ground to stand on and only serves to highlight the deciding officer's inability to grasp how creative input, partial information, and stochasticity do not conflict with each other. The decision is full of holes because of the officer's narrow conception of mechanical devices. Probably a boomer. [1] https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/klpygnkyrpg/AI%20COPYRIGHT%20decision.pdf https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/klpygnkyrpg/... Instead, as explained above, Midjourney begins the image generation process with a field of visual “noise,” which is refined based on tokens created from user prompts that relate to Midjourney’s training database. The information in the prompt may “influence” generated image, but prompt text does not dictate a specific result... Because of the significant distance between what a user may direct Midjourney to create and the visual material Midjourney actually produces, Midjourney users lack sufficient control over generated images to be treated as the “master mind” behind them.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago

This is an interesting call-out because a pencil is a (simple) machine which is used to create drawings with human input. So this ruling suggests that a sufficiently complex machine, even with human input, is not being used to create drawings but is instead the thing which is creating the drawings. That "sufficiently complex" line is being drawn somewhere between Photoshop and Stable Diffusion.

courseofaction 4y ago
I'm not sure the complexity is sufficient to explain the decision, I think it's more the 'type' of work. Many things have insanely complex manufacturing processes, but we never credit microchips to the factory. Spitballing, but I think we are conceptualizing creative work as somehow from other kinds of work, and that creative work loses its specialness (especially in the production of art and ideas) when augmented with tools. As someone who works in a creative industry, this is nonsense: all kinds of art are majority skill and work. In my opinion, it's the use of art that confers its value and 'specialness'. An image generated and shown to no one is not equal to an image generated and used as part of graphic novel.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
  I considered how one might give a prompt (the same prompt) at two different times and get two different images which started me towards thinking about a similar result in the context of other image editing software (GIMP, Photoshop, probably other things I haven't heard of). > ... creative work loses its specialness (especially in the production of art and ideas) when augmented with tools. I think about image editing software which does "fuzzy" stuff. If I don't drag my mouse in exactly the same way twice, I will get different results, however slight, when editing images but the end result is always something "I created". I do tend to land on the side that these things use different skills, which opens up these arguments that "generative" is not "creative". I just see a lot of gray when I consider these things in detail. > it's the use of art This is a very succinct way to put it. Your last paragraph hits home.
pishpash 4y ago
If you read the USCO administrative letter [1], it wasn't complexity that killed the claim, it was stochasticity. That's a much shakier ground to stand on and only serves to highlight the deciding officer's inability to grasp how creative input, partial information, and stochasticity do not conflict with each other. The decision is full of holes because of the officer's narrow conception of mechanical devices. Probably a boomer. [1] https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/klpygnkyrpg/AI%20COPYRIGHT%20decision.pdf https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/klpygnkyrpg/... Instead, as explained above, Midjourney begins the image generation process with a field of visual “noise,” which is refined based on tokens created from user prompts that relate to Midjourney’s training database. The information in the prompt may “influence” generated image, but prompt text does not dictate a specific result... Because of the significant distance between what a user may direct Midjourney to create and the visual material Midjourney actually produces, Midjourney users lack sufficient control over generated images to be treated as the “master mind” behind them.